"OHMYGAWDDD!!" squealed Katerina as she scurried across the polished marble floor in her Chloe wedges, her arms outstretched towards me. I winced as the people reading in the lobby turned to stare and shake their heads at us. But when I looked past Katerina and saw Isabelle, Vikotr, and Andres dragging in their luggage behind her, I broke out in a grin. I didn't care what people thought. I was finally with my friends.
 
"Amelie!" K hugged me to death, rocking back and forth. I laughed and hugged her back.
 
I pulled away finally and took in my friends. They were all dressed in comfortable, classy couture, like we all had been brought up. I motioned to the help and ordered them to take the luggage up to our luggage room. I had purchased one large presidential suite and then an adjoining suite for our luggage and getting-ready space. It was going to be fabulous. We were going to shake up Seattle like it had never known before.
 
"Kat, Is, Viktor, Andres!!" I pulled them all into hugs and then pushed them into an elevator. We all laughed and chattered on the way up to the seventh floor, where our suite was.
 
We entered the room and took it in appreciatively. Plasma-screen, four king-sized beds, two duvets and a chaise lounge, a kitchenette with the cabinets and fridge fully stocked, a bathroom with a sauna, jet-powered bathtub, and two large walk-in closets. They plopped their stuff down and all began talking at once.
 
"Where the hell have you been?" Andres demanded, at the same time Viktor said, "I adore that dress - who is it, I can't tell!!" right when Isabelle piped up, "It's sooo cold here but I love it!" when Katerina burst in, "So what HAPPENED?!!"
 
So I told them my story. The story of my life, starting three months ago, when I disappeared from the sizzling scene of Paris in the summer. The tabloids went crazy, everyone in France knew that the "Paris Rose" had disappeared. Everyone was frantic - everyone, that is, except for the one who mattered most.
 
"Assshole," hissed Isabelle, flipping her rich dark-red hair over her shoulder. "I can't believe him."
 
I shrugged. I hadn't told them the worst part. Just that he'd been nasty, just that he'd hurt me. I hadn't told them my - our - secret from that night.
 
"Well, it's over now, I guess," I said, trying to sound nonchalant. I looked into the faces of my four best friends in the entire world. They were sympathetic and unsmiling.
 
"I don't mean to be a downer, guys," I apologized. "And to make up for it, I have just the thing." I paused, and then I said, "All-night access to 3rd Level!"
 
There was a collective gasp. /Everyone,/ from Paris to Milan to New York, knew that one of the highest rated It Clubs of 2007, 2008, and now 2009 was 3rd Level. Stars from all nations came to the small town of Seattle just to say they'd been there when it was something big.
 
I grinned at their reaction. "Start planning your outfits, kiddos," I said. "We've got some clubbing to do."
 
---
Set = nightmare.
Story = UGH. Enough said.
Sorry guys. :[

"Amelie!!!!" Katerina screamed into the phone. "You called!!"
 
I yanked the phone away from my ear. "Seriously, K, calm down," I said in an annoyed tone. "If you want me to call in the future and be able to HEAR you you might want to lower the volume level."
 
Katerina obliged. "Sorry, sorry," she said, but she was still giggling. I could just imagine her dancing up and down in place like she did whenever she got excited. "It's just that I haven't been able to talk to you for weeks! You just disappeared, none of us could figure out where you were, your parents were frantic..."
 
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I'll be they were worried," I said. "Worried about what they would wear to the press conferences." There was a pause on the other end; I knew what I said had been the truth. Well, whatever. That was my parents for you. They had been The Couple for over eleven years now. I didn't know what the public saw in them, because the people I saw at home - which happened rarely - weren't all that amazing. And if they weren't being publicized, they were running off on a new adventure somewhere. I think this time it was Belize. The upside of them being distracted was that I had complete control over my life. Well, I did - until my life fell apart.
 
"Well, that doesn't really matter anyways," Katerina recovered and waved off the past. I straightened my shoulders.
 
"Right," I said. "It doesn't."
 
"Isabelle, Viktor, Andres, come here! It's Amelie!!!"
 
I heard a lot of shuffling and then the excited, familiar voices of my friends.
 
"Girlieee!! We missed you!! Where the helll are you, missy?" Isabelle laughed.
"Darling, Paris simply isn't the same without you!" said my gay guy-best friend, Viktor.
"Please come baaack," Andres fake-whined. "Is and K are driving me crazyyy!!"
 
I couldn't help but smile at the thought of my four best friends, sitting in a Cafe Malongo somewhere, disturbing all the other customers.
 
"I miss you guys too," I admitted. "That's why I called. I have an idea."
 
"Oooh, what is it?" Isabelle asked eagerly. "Are you going to make a super-big comeback?"
 
"Mmmm, not yet," I said, but I tucked that idea away for the future...when I was ready. "How would you guys like to come to Seattle with me?"
 
There was a pause. "Seattle?" Katerina finally asked, warily. "Isn't that the place where it rains alllll the time?"
 
"MOST of the time," I said. "You'd actually be surprised, K, it's ah-lot like New York."
 
"I like New York," Isabelle piped up to no one in particular.
 
"Well, I'm game," Andres said easily. The rest quickly followed.
 
"Great," I said. "We don't have to stay forever, just long enough to stir up the town, do some dirt, hop to another venue and press repeat."
 
"Love it!" Viktor said.
"I gotta go pack," Isabelle said distractedly, wandering away from the phone.
"See you in Seattle, babe," K said. "Call me!"
 
---
Yesss, I know that this set/story isn't the greatest.
But let me give it a try :]

I laid on my ballet-slipper pink eiderdown duvet and fingered the ring carefully. I peered at every inch, ran my fingers over the cool, smooth sterling silver, whispered the words etched inside aloud.
 
//Never another - always for you.//
 
Those words had been enscripted in there for me - just me. I had one been his girl. I had once been a "they" and "we" and "us." I had once been happy.
 
But that had all changed that night. After the most beautiful night in the world, all that had changed - by one revengeful, hateful, destroying phone call that had ruined my life - quite possibly forever.
 
Leaning over towards the phone by my bedside, I paused to look at myself in the ceiling mirror. My porcelian skin was flawless as usual. My long, rich auburn colored hair was fanned out across the soft pillows. My normally bright, passionate sapphire eyes were now dulled by boredom and many nights of falling asleep crying.
 
I picked up the reciever and dialed 2.
 
"Room service," a professional voice answered.
"A cup of oatmeal and half a grapefruit," I asked.
"Right away, Miss DuPont," the friendly man said.
 
I hung up and stared at the ceiling some more. I didn't even know myself anymore. I had just ordered grapefruit and would probably end up eating it. The old me had HATED grapefruit. Now I truly knew that my life was falling apart. I was a puzzle missing a piece - and that piece was all the way back in Paris.
 
Whoever said Paris was the city of love?